Leicester postman returns Father's Day letter sent to heaven

The girl was four months old when her father died

A mother whose eight-year-old daughter posted a Father's Day letter addressed to her dad in heaven said she was overwhelmed when it was returned to her by a postman.

The postman, who recently lost his own father, managed to track down Sarah Tully after a social media appeal.

He said he feared the letter, which he found in a Leicester post box on Monday, would have been thrown away.

Ms Tully said she planned to keep the letter in a box for her daughter.

'Emotional'

The postman, who is called Simon but declined to give his surname, said he had found the letter inside a post box in Braunstone while working overtime on a route he does not usually cover.

He said he was "taken aback" when he read it, after losing his own father last year.

"Obviously without a stamp or an actual address on it, if it got put in with the rest of the stuff to be delivered it would just end up getting thrown away in transit somewhere," he said.

"I spoke to my manager and asked if I could try to get hold of the family to find out more about it and get it back to them."

He posted a picture of the letter on Facebook where it attracted thousands of comments.

Within 15 minutes he had been put in touch with Ms Tully and arranged to take the unopened letter to her.

They met on Tuesday evening and Simon gave the "lovely little girl" a father and daughter figurine as a gift.

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The eight-year-old often writes to Tony Tully to say "I love you and I miss you"

Ms Tully said she had been "just overwhelmed" by the social media reaction.

"I never thought this would happen. I'm in shock," she said.

She said her daughter had lost her father Tony when she was just four months old.

She said she had "really struggled" without him and posting letters to him, telling him she loves and misses him, helped her to cope.

"She was so small and she's only just starting to understand," she said.

"I think this year it might have hit her the hardest because she was more emotional."

She added she was going to keep the letter - along with prints of the social media comments - in a special box for her daughter when she is older.